


Hubble, Bubble

by entropynchaos (katonahottinroof)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, F/F, Gen, Halloween, Humor, Loki is...Loki, M/M, Pepper is a witch, Tony is a mad scientist, What Was I Thinking?, different strokes for different folks, god-'cest... sort of, it's a strange place..., it's not like they're REALLY brothers after all, welcome to my brain, zombies and vampires and werewolves oh my
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/535222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katonahottinroof/pseuds/entropynchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is your typical, generic mad-genius – there’s more than one of them in Hallowe’en Town, after all, but Tony’s the best. And Jarvis? Jarvis is his Monster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hubble, Bubble

**Author's Note:**

> In which Tony Stark is a mad scientist, Pepper Potts has magical powers, JARVIS is dry and sarky, and Loki is Loki... so not much is new, then.

Tony made it… him? …when he was fourteen. Slapped a couple of wires together, hoisted the platform up through the open roof of the tower and let the lightning have at it.

He calls it Jarvis.

Half-metal, half-flesh that Tony went into the mortal world to collect, picky kid that he was. All loyalty, although that extends to Jarvis nagging Tony about eating his greens as well as acting as butler, confidant and occasional bodyguard.

Tony Stark is your typical, generic mad-genius – there’s more than one of them in Hallowe’en Town, after all, but Tony’s the best. And Jarvis? Jarvis is his Monster.

 

***

 

Tony’s thirty-seven, now. Still a genius, still perhaps a couple of pumpkins short of a patch, still knocking around the tower (now taller, slightly more stable than it had been when his dad had died and Tony had inherited it) and still plagued by the Monster he created twenty-three years ago from scraps of this and that.

(He also has the monster – ha! – of all crushes on the soldier-who-wouldn’t-stay-dead, but that’s another story.)

Pepper’s a witch. Tony knows this – they grew up together, after all, running around the town and creating havoc… well, _Tony_ created havoc. Pepper stood back and watched him mess up and then dragged him out of the messes he made with a sigh and a roll of her eyes that only ever went pitch-black when he really, _really_ pissed her off.

Tony even has an Igor… although Happy (and what a ridiculous name for an Igor _that_ is) is about as far from the traditional, stooped-‘n’-lisping caricature as it’s possible to get.

A mad scientist, a witch, a Monster and an Igor live in a tower. Punch-line is that it’s not the strangest thing Hallowe’en Town’s seen.

 

***

 

Tony doesn’t like Pepper’s newest little minion. Darcy is all bumbling, grinning adorableness when Pepper’s around, but she’s got a twitchy, witchy finger that likes to shoot spark and electricity out – ‘totally of its own accord, dude!’ – like the best mortal taser. Darcy isn’t remotely subtle, no matter how much she thinks she is.

Like now. When she’s on her best match-making spree, all cackling maliciously in the corner to herself and not even contemplating the consequences. The consequences being, of course, that Steve’s going to _kill_ him when he finds out.

Or, at the very least, hate him forever. In Tony’s opinion, that pretty much amounts to the same thing.

Jarvis puts a cup of hemlock tea in front of him and raises one eyebrow sternly when Tony makes to push it away. Not that it makes much difference – Jarvis is perfect in every other way apart from his eyebrows, one of which is always higher than the other to begin with. Tony would rather have a glass – possibly a bottle – of Nightshade Whiskey, but he’s learned, over the years, to refrain from disagreeing with Jarvis when the Eyebrow™ gets pulled out. He sighs and pulls the cup towards him, taking a sip and letting it relax him even as he tries to ignore Darcy’s voice – detailing her plans of sheer insanity – as it washes over him like a wave of corrosive acid.

Maybe if he found someone else – _two_ someone else, actually – then Darcy could concentrate on them and let Tony get back to wrecking the best friendship he’s had in years all on his own, because if there’s one thing Tony’s good at besides Evil Science and Mechanics, then it’s alienating the people and monsters who care about him.

He misses Natasha. Natasha was good and efficient (scarily so, at times), even if she did sometimes flash more than a hint of fang at him when he wound her up at little too much. Plus, she had stabbed that little cockroach Justin Hammer (unfortunately not actually killing him, although that would have been no great loss) when Hammer had tried to steal Tony’s blueprints for Jarvis. Also, he’d tried to steal Jarvis, kill Happy and burn down Stark Tower…

(He’d tried to kill Tony as well, which Tony considered somewhere beneath stealing and destroying his life’s work and one of his oldest friends, and he should probably be a little concerned by that, but Tony’s never exactly seen eye-to-eye with sanity – hence the ‘mad’ part of his designation as ‘mad scientist’. Natasha and Pepper, however, had taken Tony’s near-bleeding out a little more strongly than Tony had, which was why Justin Hammer was currently a literal cockroach instead of a metaphorical one and living a life of terror and fear in a jar in Pepper’s supply room between the jar of newt eyes and the box of spider tongues. If Tony didn’t know better, he’d think there was a little harpy blood in both of the ladies… although he’s _never_ going to voice _that_ aloud.)

Natasha can’t, however, be persuaded to remove Darcy from Tony’s life – or from Hallowe’en Town and/or life altogether. Tony thinks she’s scared of Pepper.

Anyone with at least half a brain (and that’s not as common as you’d think, in Hallowe’en Town) is scared of Pepper.

 

***

 

There’s a demi-god in Tony’s lounge, leaning against Tony’s bar and sipping delicately at a tumbler of Tony’s best Nightshade Whiskey, from the shade of the liquid in the glass.

One of these days, Tony’s going to finally succeed in Loki-proofing his Tower.

“Drink?” Loki offers, all smooth seduction. Tony’s not fooled. Loki only seduces when he wants something.

Still, it is very good whiskey…

Loki smirks over the rim of his glass.

 

***

 

Tony forces his eyes open – and instantly regrets it. The daylight in Hallowe’en Town rarely gets that bright, the gloomy clouds usually providing cover from the worst of it, but that doesn’t stop Tony from thinking for a crazy half-second that someone’s trying to blind him by stabbing his eyeballs with daggers of sunshine.

There’s a pounding in his head like the town’s band has got in and are now trying to force their way out by drumming on the inside of his skull.

One of these days, Tony’s going to have to learn to stop drinking with Loki.

Jarvis is standing at his side, glass of green fizzy (Tony’s never managed to find out what’s in it, but by god does it work) in hand and a faintly disapproving look on his scarred face. Impressive, not least because half of Jarvis’ face is metal-plated.

“I hate my life,” Tony says. It comes out sounding more like ‘ahhaemnife’, but that’s only because he’s currently trying to free his mouth of the couch cushion.

“Quite, sir. Please drink up,” Jarvis intones, handing over the glass.

“’Ucking ‘oki,” Tony mumbles, and downs the green fizzy in one gulp. Last night’s going to have repercussions, Tony just knows it, but he really can’t be bothered to worry about that when he’s fending off the hangover from hell by imbibing possible-poison in a fetching shade of green.


End file.
